Chad Mottola, the hitting coach for the Tampa Bay Rays for the past decade, sat in the visiting team dugout alongside speedy slap-hitter Chandler Simpson and budding star Junior Caminero, who was nearing the end of his first full season in the majors. It was late September 2025.

Caminero’s baseball year had started with a bang back in January, when the then-21-year-old hit a ball 454 feet to clinch a championship in the Dominican Winter League. Even in a nation known for ostentatious displays of baseball obsession, the ensuing theatrics went viral. Stateside for the Rays, the young slugger had hit 45 home runs, been an All-Star, and competed in the Home Run Derby.

But now, he was watching the Toronto Blue Jays celebrate having clinched the division on the last day of the season. The Blue Jays were about to go on a magical run that would come within inches of a title, ultimately falling short in an all-time classic of a World Series.

Caminero’s Rays, on the other hand, were headed home. Already, the rest of the team had descended to the clubhouse to start their offseason. Mottola, Simpson, and Caminero lingered and let the bad feeling of watching someone else revel in success to sink in.

Mottola turned to his young players. “That’s us next year,” he said.

And it was.

The Rays clinched the 2026 American League East with a victory over the New York Yankees in the Bronx, the most famous franchise in the sport relegated to a wild card berth. The team with the third-lowest payroll in Major League Baseball had toppled the team with the third-highest payroll, on that night and in the division.

“Amazing, amazing,” Caminero told CNN Sports, recalling the celebration two days later. “But we gotta continue. We need the American (League). We need the World Series.”

He spoke in English. Caminero is from Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic. His love for baseball is both cultural – the DR sends more players to the majors than any other country outside the United States – and personal. Caminero is one of those players who, even amid a 162-game season, spends his off days watching baseball.

Despite it being his second language, and the prevalence of Spanish in the big leagues, Caminero has started doing more interviews in English. In July, he appeared on Jeff Passan’s podcast at ESPN for an hour, all in English. Caminero was forthright and far-ranging, talking about the trade that brought him to the Rays as a minor leaguer as well as why Latin players aren’t more involved in the Players Association.

 

He was also funny, poking fun at his own plodding speed on the basepaths and demonstrating his best Australian accent.

It’s a personality and a propensity to be known that could make him one of baseball’s rare breakout stars – combined, of course, with the performance.

Caminero boasts the fastest bat speed in the majors. Over the past two seasons combined, he has the second-most home runs in baseball, the most in the American League. More than global sensation and four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani. More than three-time MVP and Yankees captain Aaron Judge, who was sidelined with injury for most of this year. More than Ben Rice, who has stepped up in Judge’s absence to be the preeminent Bomber in the Bronx.

“He has a high ceiling, but he also has aptitude,” said Mottola, who credits Caminero with reinvigorating his own enthusiasm for the game.

Caminero’s willingness to work, to make mistakes, to learn and improve – he nearly doubled his walk rate year over year – is rare for someone so talented.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a teammate or a player that can do the things he does,” Mottola said.

“He has every attribute that you would consider a star player to have,” Rays shortstop Taylor Walls told CNN Sports. “I guess the market being smaller, you may not hear about him quite as much as you would hear about other bigger-market names, but based on just pure performance and play, 100%.”

Walls is correct. You don’t hear about Caminero as much as his output merits because of where he plays.

The Rays are a scrappy organization. Perennial contenders despite the payroll constraints, unbothered by their underdog status even after clinching the top seed in the league. Historically, the team has succeeded by being greater than the sum of its parts. Neither stars nor scrubs but rather an optimized collection of skills buoyed by collective buy-in.

There have only ever been seven seasons of more than 35 home runs authored by Rays players and already, at 23 years old, Caminero is responsible for two of them.

If he played in New York, Caminero would be the next big thing. The kid who convinced his parents to name his little brother after former Yankees manager Joe Girardi now an unstoppable slugger? That’s superstar material. In pinstripes, Caminero would have been a Yankee hero.

Instead, he’ll look to end their season.

Two weeks after the Rays clinched the division in New York, they return to the Bronx on Wednesday with a commanding 2-0 lead in the division series over the Yankees. History says they have a nearly 90% chance of advancing to the championship series. They have two shots at a dogpile celebration in front of a hostile crowd.

Despite winning the division, given the disparity in market, payroll, and legacy – the Rays have two pennants, but no World Series titles, in their 29-year history – it would still be seen as David taking down Goliath.

“The national media always paints a picture that we’re overperforming,” Mottola said. “We have really good players that don’t get the attention they should. And rightly so, probably during the playoff time, the way (Caminero) is, his personality will probably get a lot more attention.”

That way is respectful – of the veterans in the clubhouse and the game that he still hasn’t fully mastered.

“I try to stay more humble,” Caminero said.

But not shrinking.

“I know who I am,” he said.

“He likes the adrenaline,” Mottola said, “He likes to feel like, OK, something special is going to happen.”

And if this October he rises to those occasions when the stakes are the highest, would that make him transcend the market to join the ranks of baseball stars?

“Wallsy, tell ‘em,” Caminero deflected when asked directly.

“He is a superstar,” Walls said.